Month: January 2023

Thank you to @duttonbooks and @netgalley for the #gifted digital ARC and @PRHaudio for the complimentary audiobook.

Summary: When Maya sees a video of a girl dying at a table in a restaurant, she immediately recognizes the man she’s with. In fact, that same man was with her friend, Aubrey, when she died. Maya needs to know what happened so she can finally get closer about the past.

Characters: Maya is a hot mess. From the first chapter, we find out she’s off her antipsychotic medication. She insists she doesn’t need it but the people closest to her (mom) and her family history indicate she does. She’s so unreliable as a narrator that I honestly didn’t know if I could believe anything she thought. Frank appears manipulative, but we only know of Frank through Maya’s viewpoint. Same with Aubrey.

Plot: The story was a bit all over the place. It seemed to be running in a linear way but once the flashbacks were introduced, I often found myself confused between past and present. The way new characters, and old ones, were introduced also seemed disjointed. The story itself was interesting, and I wasn’t sure where it was going although I had my suspicions. It was interesting to see those realized.

Pacing: The pacing was not overly fast, but things happened in a way that I felt I was always a step behind. The alternating between past and present happened at breakneck speed in some cases. But the narrative felt slower.

Writing: I really enjoyed Reyes’s writing style. There was a flow in it, especially in the flashback scenes that kept me reading.

Enjoyment: Overall, I am glad I read this book and know that I want to read more by this author because of her writing style.

The Villa – Rachel Hawkins

St. Martin’s Press – Macmillan Audio

January 3, 2023

Thank you to @stmartinspress and @netgalley for the #gifted digital ARC and @macmillanaudio and @libro.fm for the complimentary audiobook.

Summary:

1974 – Mari, her married boyfriend Pierce, and step sister Lana, are invited to a villa in Italy by rock star Noal Gordon. During the summer, Mari writes a best selling horror novel, Lara records a platinum album, and Pierce is brutally murdered. 

In present day, Emily and Chess rent the same notorious villa to write their next novels. But Emily is drawn to the history of the place and wants to find out what really happened that fateful summer. 

Thoughts:

This was a wild ride. Told in alternating chapters with Mari and Emily as narrators, the story of the two timelines weaves together. Honestly, the similarities of the events in both times sometimes made it feel like I was reading the same story twice. The way this was written was reminiscent of Taylor Jenkins Reid but not done as well. It wasn’t until the very end that I considered googling events to see if any part of this story was based in truth. The ending was not the payoff I had hoped for, but it was entertaining.